De Blasio also announced the city will open more than 4,200 brand new full-day pre-K seats across New York City this September, WCBS 880’s Rich Lamb reported.

Just before his announcement, the mayor read “The Hungry Caterpillar” to a group of pre-K students and got a surprise from the crowd.

“Because of the young man who put up his hand as I was reading to this pre-K class and he said he wanted to tell me a word he learned. I’m like what’s the word you learned. He says metamorphosis. I was taken a-back,” de Blasio said.

“New York’s commitment to invest $1.5 billion over five years to begin to phase in publicly-funded preschool across the state will provide opportunity for thousands of children, including 53,000 children who will be able to attend preschool in New York City this fall,” the White House said in a statement.

De Blasio said the goal is to offer 53,000 pre-kindergarten seats by this fall and seats for every child by next year.